Vocals crackling..

[Tebo]

That's a horrible tutorial. Don't ever use presets. You need to learn how to use fx properly and learn proper mix techniques. Post a sample of the raw vocal track.

It's not as noticable just raw vocals, it's when it hits the beat it messes up noticeably

So there is no way to just record a vocal an match it with the beat to sound clear, without doing mixing stuff first? It will always sound fucked up in some way.

I mean this sorte of sounds retarded that a raw vocal cannot sound clear over a beat, considering a USB mic can do it perfectly. Like I'm not messing around with anything except turning volume up to hear the vocal, I'm not & never have been trying to mix this stuff

...I don't want to learn how to mix, there is no way to learn over the net plus I just don't want my vocals to fuck up the way they are & be able to hear them smooth without some disortion, while over a beat

[Opie M.]

dude... post up the raw vocal and I'll tell you if you have a problem and what it might be.

[Tebo]

[soundclick]8352124&q[/soundclick]

& here is 1 with the beat just so u fully hear the distortion

[soundclick]8352161&q[/soundclick]

[Opie M.]

You're clipping the shit out of your mix. The sample you gave me with the beat is way too loud. Sounds like that beat you're using is shitty and ridiculously over compressed. A beat like that is gonna be damn near impossible to mix vocals over. Try a good sounding beat. The raw vocals were recorded at a very good level and they sound fine. You're just turning them up way too loud to compete with that shitty beat. The distortion you hear is clipping. You need to pay attention to your levels. No levels on any track OR on the master channel should EVER EVER EVER go above 0dB.

Also, you said you don't want to learn how to mix. You will NEVER get a good mix without knowing how to mix. PERIOD. If you don't want to mix then get someone else to do it for you. Or else your tracks will always sound like shit. It's pretty much an insult to have someone say they don't want to learn how to mix but they want to have a good mix. Would you tell a professional guitarist that you want to play guitar but you don't want to learn how?? No. Mixing is no different. It's an art form that takes talent, skill, and musicianship.

[Tebo]

You're clipping the shit out of your mix. The sample you gave me with the beat is way too loud. Sounds like that beat you're using is shitty and ridiculously over compressed. A beat like that is gonna be damn near impossible to mix vocals over. Try a good sounding beat. The raw vocals were recorded at a very good level and they sound fine. You're just turning them up way too loud to compete with that shitty beat. The distortion you hear is clipping. You need to pay attention to your levels. No levels on any track OR on the master channel should EVER EVER EVER go above 0dB.

Also, you said you don't want to learn how to mix. You will NEVER get a good mix without knowing how to mix. PERIOD. If you don't want to mix then get someone else to do it for you. Or else your tracks will always sound like shit. It's pretty much an insult to have someone say they don't want to learn how to mix but they want to have a good mix. Would you tell a professional guitarist that you want to play guitar but you don't want to learn how?? No. Mixing is no different. It's an art form that takes talent, skill, and musicianship.

You know I'v talked to you about mixing... and for the rest of the stuff I'v had Lear, Vylint & Troy Murray give me a big hand, sorry for sounding ignorant that I want a good mix from doing nothing, lol. My old usb mic right, it sounded good with the beat, I have it recorded with my old mic it sounds fine it's just I wanted to re record it b4 I sent it to be mixed. See the usb mic made my vocals sound loud enough with this beat with no distortion.

This beat in particular is a mp3 free download from shadowville, why is this beat is not usable to record with? What if I turned the beat down instead of my vocals up too much?

All I wanted was to be able to hear my vocals as loud as they should be without ''clipping'' over the beat, to know if that take was ''the 1'' by listening to it, before I sent it to someone to mix it.

[Opie M.]

I would definitely try to bring the beat down to mix with the vocals. I always do that.

But yea... That beat sounds like trash mix wise. Really not too much you can expect to do about that.

Which USB mic did you have?

[Opie M.]

Also, if someone else is mixing this then I'd just send it to them as is. I know I'd always rather have just the raw vocals without any tampering.

[Tebo]

Also, if someone else is mixing this then I'd just send it to them as is. I know I'd always rather have just the raw vocals without any tampering.

Just cus it bugs me if it's like that to know if its the take I want, plus to do over dubs and stuff. Does adjusting the sound to hear it well with the beat really tamper with the natural raw vocal much?

Like turning the beat down might do it for sure, if it does then dope.

As for what USB mic I used, it was just the most generic 100 dollar 1 you can get at any small music store places, it was a CAD Studio blah blah condensor usb $100 dollar 1

Also, in general are all free mp3 download beats from places like Shadowville etc all gonna suck to record with? Or was it just this beat in particular?

[Opie M.]

You can always just take the fx off of the mixer channel after you're done. The raw wav file doesn't get touched unless you do something to it in wthe wave editor (which you should always avoid doing).

[Tebo]

You can always just take the fx off of the mixer channel after you're done. The raw wav file doesn't get touched unless you do something to it in wthe wave editor (which you should always avoid doing).

so the vocals at around -12db peak

what should the beat by itself peak at normally or does that always differentiate depending on what sounds best?

I'm turning it down right now, I noticed it was consistantly at the 0dB so that's why there was clipping.. yeah?

& are you saying just this beat in particular sorta sucks or that all free mp3 download beats will tend to be rough to work with?

[Tebo]

also.. what do you know of Ableton

[Lear]

man i thought the problem was fixed from before when you hit me up wit this..
if that didn't work then i have no idea how to fix this problem tebo..
i'll look it up for sumthin and if i get some new info i'll get back with you..

[Opie M.]

so the vocals at around -12db peak

what should the beat by itself peak at normally or does that always differentiate depending on what sounds best?

I'm turning it down right now, I noticed it was consistantly at the 0dB so that's why there was clipping.. yeah?

& are you saying just this beat in particular sorta sucks or that all free mp3 download beats will tend to be rough to work with?

The beat is gonna be different all the time, but a mastered beat is gonna peak at 0dB. But you should pay attention to how much the meter jumps around. If the meter constantly stays at 0dB or close to it, then all the head room is pretty much used up, because 0dB is all you have. If you were to try to put vocals over top of it, there's no way to go higher than 0dB. The best thing you can do in this case is turn the beat down to give yourself some head room. But when I mix, I always do this anyway. I record at around -12dB and mix the song that low. You have to turn the speakers up more than you usually do when listening to music, but that's fine. Then after it's all mixed, you can either bounce the song down to a stereo mix and use a normalizer to bring it all up to 0dB again, or you can put a limiter on the master channel and raise the gain on the limiter to bring the volume back up. The normalizer is easier but the limiter allows you to do more to the track.

And I'm just saying this particular beat is way over-compressed. It's very common for people to over-compress their songs. Even mainstream songs get this way. Mainstream engineers do it because there's this stupid competition for loudness on radio play. Beat makers do it because they have no clue what they're doing.